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“I believe that I can detect some kind of nasty magic floating around in it.”

“You mean the food has been spelled?” Richard asked.

“Yes, I believe so, but I don’t know what kind of spell it could be. It’s possible that it could merely be an innocent spell to help us sleep, but I think it best if we don’t eat it and find out too late that it is something more.”

With the heel of his hand resting on the hilt of his sword locked into the scabbard by some sort of magic, Richard drummed his fingers on the wire-wound handle.

He frowned in thought as he looked around at the others. “Why are we here?”

“To see the queen?” Berdine asked.

Richard shook his head. “No. We came here because the boundary left us no other way around the mountains. But the path, while leading us into this trap, also revealed a pass that can get us over the mountains. That’s what we need to do: get through this pass and cross over the mountains and into the Midlands.

“Why would we need to see the queen? What we need to do is leave this place before the Golden Goddess sees us through the eyes of people here and sends more of the Glee to kill us. We’ve been lucky up until now in fighting them. I’d rather not press our luck and have to fight them again.”

Shale passed a worried look between Richard and Kahlan. “What about Iron Jack? He is gifted. And you can’t use your sword because of some magic he has used on it.”

“Hopefully he went to bed.” Richard showed her a grim expression. “But if he tries to harm us and if I have to, I will put my sword, scabbard and all, through his heart.”

“At last,” Vika said, throwing up her hands, “you are finally making sense.”

Her sisters of the Agiel all nodded their agreement.

14

Other than a skinny gray cat looking for a meal among the refuse in scattered piles and trash that had drifted into corners of buildings, the dark, narrow streets of the mountain-fortress town were deserted. Something about darkness gave the place a forbidding feel. Kahlan got the distinct feeling that Bindamoon was not a place where one would want to be outside at night.

Moonlight reflected off cobblestones worn smooth and shiny by countless feet. The variety of laundry hung on ropes strung between opposing windows overhead cast ghostly moon shadows across the passageways. Without any wind, woodsmoke from chimneys curled down the tile roofs to settle into the canyons and alleyways between the towering walls, looking like fog as it slowly crept along the ground.

Kahlan was relieved that there hadn’t been guards posted at the guest quarters to keep watch over them. At least, there were none she saw. She supposed that they assumed the spells in the soup had rendered them helpless, or unconscious. Or even dead.

Shale had said that she didn’t sense anyone near. Richard, worried about how the gifted might be able to use magic to conceal their presence, and not exactly sure of the extent of Shale’s ability to determine such things, had gone out alone to scout the area anyway and make sure they weren’t being watched. Once he was satisfied that there was no one about, he and Vika took the lead as they left the buildings Iron Jack had taken them to. They left the soup and pots of tea untouched and cold on the table.

Berdine shadowed Vika, with Kahlan and then the rest following behind. They stayed close together as they made their way through the cobblestone streets as quietly as possible. None of them spoke for fear of waking the sleeping residents or giving away their position if there were any watchmen in the city. She also knew of magic that could detect and even overhear distant voices, so they used hand signals when necessary.

The windows overlooking the tight, winding passageways were all dark. While there was a main road leading through the town, Richard didn’t want to take it for fear of being spotted out in the open, so they took a route through the tight cluster of buildings stepping up the steep rises to the side of the pass. As far as Kahlan could tell, other than the main road through the pass, there were no large thoroughfares among the densely packed buildings, just a maze of narrow streets and alleys.

Those narrow streets and alleyways weren’t laid out in any particular pattern she could discern. It seemed that the buildings were simply built where they could fit in atop the rocky terrain. That meant that to go in the desired direction, they needed to take a zigzag route among the stone buildings.

Every once in a while, they caught a view of the moon as they continued making their way generally west by way of twists and turns. As difficult as it was to navigate among the tightly packed buildings, Kahlan found it preferable to being out in the open on the main road through the pass. If they could be spotted by any of the people of Bindamoon, they could also be spotted by the goddess.

Richard pointed up at a window as he tiptoed under it. With his back close to the wall, he crossed his lips with a finger in warning. Kahlan glanced up and in the moonlight saw a heavyset man in a dark window scratching the back of his fat arm as he yawned. He stepped close to the window to look out at the mountains. He probably couldn’t sleep. Kahlan wished she could; she was exhausted and, on top of that, being pregnant with the twins meant that everything required extra effort. Her fear of being caught by the menacing and gifted Iron Jack kept her moving without complaining as she, too, put her back up against the wall while passing under the window.

At the first opportunity, Richard hurriedly turned them all to the left around a corner and down a different street. He put a hand to their backs as they went by, urging each of them to hurry along so that the man wouldn’t see them if he happened to look down. Kahlan breathed a sigh of relief to have made it past unseen.

The maze Richard took them through led them ever higher up the slippery cobblestones. The heart of the town was a warren of passageways, some of them with steps to climb the steeper alleyways. In some places there were courtyards to the side screened by solid wooden gates. Kahlan looked through the spaces between the wooden slats and was able to see small tables and chairs. There was nothing threatening in any of the enclosed spaces she looked into.

No matter how far they went, the buildings were all constructed the same way. The moonlight among the vertical stone walls was enough for them to see by, but barely, and not enough to banish the spooky shadows in angular, twisting corners. Kahlan worried about what might be lurking in those shadows.

In many places they had to step carefully lest they walk in the muck that people dumped out of the windows. Large populations of rats scurried along close to the walls. The alleyways stank of the waste thrown out from chamber pots. The streets didn’t smell much better. The stench mixed with the woodsmoke creeping along the ground to make a pungent tang. In places the overwhelming smell made Kahlan feel sick to her stomach. She was eager to get away from Bindamoon and out into the fresh air of the surrounding forests.

As the sky began to brighten with the approaching dawn and they came to the top of a cobblestone passageway, they got their first glimpse between buildings at what lay out beyond the town. It wasn’t a good enough view to satisfy Kahlan, but through the vertical slit between walls she was at least able to see open countryside. The expectation of getting away had them all hurrying to get beyond the buildings of the town and out into the concealment of the forests.

When they finally reached the outer edges of the town, where some of the buildings sat right atop the wall where it met the mountain, they all finally got their first good look over that wall and down the trail on the western side of Bindamoon. In the brightening daylight, Kahlan could see that the path went off into snow-crusted trees. She knew that anyone would be able to follow their tracks in the snow, but she also knew that the path would eventually descend below the snow line, where it would be much easier for them to disappear into the thick trees and brush among the rocky outcroppings.